Posted on 03/18/2014 9:10:05 PM PDT by varmintman
I'm not the world's foremost expert on Russia... But I believe I know enough to at least try to clear up a few of the misconceptions I see on forums and have been listening to on talk radio for the past few weeks.
A bit of Russian history for starters... Slavic farmers invited Vikings (Verangians) into what you'd now call Russia and set up the Kievan state which adopted Christianity around 988 AD so that the territory controlled by the city of Kiev was the dominant power in Russia prior to the Mongol invasion in 1236. In other words, they'd fought Polovyetski/Cumins and other nomad tribes to a sort of a standstill which appeared to be a workable state of affairs and then they got run over by a military avalanch and an empire whose military technology was 300 years ahead of the rest of the world.
Russia spent the next 140 years or so under the "Mongol Yoke" before the princes of Moscow managed to win a huge battle over the Golden Horde at Kulikovo in 1380, only to have the white and golden hordes unite a couple of years later and plow Russia under foot again where she would have remained for another century or two, nonetheless shortly thereafter Tamerlane came through and annihilated the Golden Horde. Unlike the situation with Genghis Khan who had utterly competent heirs, Tamerlane's empire began to crumble shortly after his death in the first few years of the 1400s, leaving much of Russia a sort of a shambles and Southern Russia what was called "wild fields". Jews living in what had been the remains of the Khazar kingdom prior to that time finally had enough and started moving to Poland and Germany and for a period of a century or so until Russia started to get organized again, Poland and Lithuania began to look like serious countries on maps. In those days, the Ukraine was part of Poland and one of the biggest if not THE biggest celebrations there ever was in the Ukraine was when Russia took it over in the 1700s.
The Ukrainian language is basically the language of the principality of Kiev while modern Russian is basically the language of the principality of Suzdal and the city of Moscow. At some point, the languages of the various places which comprised Russia must have fused, which is presumably why you have more than one system for verb formations and declension endings. The difference between Russian and Ukrainian is similar to the difference between our English and Chaucer's and anybody in the Ukraine who isn't retarded can speak Russian.
The city of Moscow featured the most paranoid design for a city in the history of the world, basically a system of concentric rings, each more difficult to break into than the last. That is because up to a very late date, Crimean Tatars, remnants of the Golden Horde, used to ride into the city as far as they could get, capture children and stuff them into baskets on their horses and ride off to sell them so that the word "Slav" morphed into "slave". The fact that any Crimean Tatars remain alive at all strongly indicates that Russians are an unusually tolerant people, less given to holding grudges than most.
The official title of the tsars was "Tsar of all the Russias", meaning primarily 'Great Russia' (Russia), 'White Russia' (Belorus), and 'Little Russia' (Ukraine). That is the heart of the Slavic Orthodox world and Ukraine is the breadbasket of that world. The Ukraine could feed everybody from the Volga to the Atlantic and that in fact was Hitler's plan; the idea was to build a super-gauge train to haul foodstuffs from Ukraine to Europe and, as I read it at least, to get Western Europe pretty much out of the food business altogether.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitspurbahn
"Early plans for routes considered India and Vladivostok as the ultimate goals of the railways, but [b][i][size=150]by 1943 the planning was focused exclusively on European cities.[1] Ukraine and the Volga Basin were seen as especially important targets, as these areas were viewed as the future granaries of the Nazi empire[/size][/i][/b],[1] potentially through the "settlement strings". orSiedlungsperlen of the proposed Wehrbauer settlements within the conquered Lebensraum territories, which would also be linked by the planned easternmost reaches of theReichsautobahn freeway network.[5]...."
But you get the idea. The idea that anybody should have expected Vladimir Putin to just sit there and watch George Soros, Monsanto, and the US state department to just walk off with the Ukraine is idiotic. For that matter, the Crimea had been part and parcel of Russia for at least a couple of centuries before Khrushchev gifted it to Ukraine in 1954; it didn't seem to make much difference when everybody was a citizen of the CCCP one way or other, but expecting Russia to just let go of he Crimea under present circumstances is doubly stupid.
Moreover, there is a very big problem with language convergence. Television and the Internet are radically shrinking the world. TV has in fact killed the Southern accent in Texas so that I hear it only amongst people over 60; I expect TV and the internet to kill most of the world's languages in the next 30 years. My guess would be that languages which will still be in use by 2050 will include:
Basically, Ukrainian is a dead language walking and the idiots who just took over Kiev know that, which accounts for at least some of their irrational behavior. Ukraine has a border with Russia, their culture is tied up with that of Russia, and Russian is the main language of those which will survive, with which they are most familiar. My money says that in 20 years, Ukrainian will be spoken only amongst people over 60. The future of the Ukrainian people clearly lies with Russia.
That brings up an obvius question: what are the people in the US state department smoking? What did they expect to see happen?? Another question is, what reasons could there be for wanting to start a major war over any of this stuff?
A century or two ago the reasons for starting wars were simple: Gold, land, women, treaties... That stuff was heinous enough but it was at least comprehensible. In today's world, unfortunatley, you have to at least consider the most paranoid possibility i.e. that the LaRouche group may be right and that the idiots may actually have in mind to start a nuclear war to reduce the human population of the planet to less than one billion as per their stated ideology, for the glory of Gaea.
It turns out the sniper killings around Kiev a month ago were the work of the hoodlums WE are supporting, and not that of Yanukovich or Russians:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-05/behind-kiev-snipers-it-was-somebody-new-coaltion-stunning-new-leak-reveals-truth
We have now seen two of these false-flag ops in the past six months (Syria and Kiev). At some point, the world has seen this **** one too many times and gets wise to it, and starts to look on Americans as a bunch of lunatics. It's hard not to get the idea that somebody in the US State Department is trying to start a major war.
Aside from that, the world can clearly see that Vladimir Putin is the best Ruler Russia has ever had since Tsar Peter, and that Bork Obunga is just as clearly the worst ruler any advanced state has ever had since Nero and may in fact be WORSE than Nero since I don't view Bork as being bright enough to play a fiddle. More likely we'll get to listen to rap while America burns.
Vladimir Putin is the main force responsible for bringing the global warming lunatics into global disrepute and disrepect. Putin apparently got a number of Russia's best hackers in a room and said something like "Guys, I'm not gonna wreck Russia's economy over a bunch of bullshit, I want you to blast your way into that East Anglia Email Database and spread to the four winds whatever you might find there", and they did that:
http://www.climategate.com
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?221759-Is-Putin-behind-the-leaked-Climategate-e-mails
In other words, aside from needing to learn how to pronounce the guy's name properly, commentators like Limbaugh and Hannity need to understand that Putin is primarily responsible for their not needing to rub sticks together to make fire.
I mean, how many times does that make that Russia has bailed our hiney's out of some really awful kind of ****? Picture living in a world in which Sweden was a major power, i.e. picture yourself cruising in a 57 Volvo:
Guy a half mile up the road had one of those when I was a teenager. The thing was so ugly that just having it parked at the curb reduced housing values within a three-block radius. Tsar Peter saved us from that ****:
I EXPECT libtards and demoKKKrats to be clueless; it's painful to listen to stupid **** coming from right of center commentaters like Limbaugh and Hannity. Again they should start by at least learning to pronounce the guy's name properly:
"vla-DEE-mir POO-Tin" The accent is on the second syllable in Vladimir and nobody swallows a T or pronounces it like a D in Russia.
There is a question of communism in the picture and the thing you have to grasp is that the Soviet state had an absolute monopoly on weapons under the CCCP so that there was no possibility of the people ever rising up and overthrowing that system. That system fell because the people running it finally realized it couldn't work and gave it up. There is zero possibility of Russia going back to socialism or communism.
They ARE however going back to their original Christian roots and aside from building some 200 Christian churches in and around Moscow, they have actually rebuilt that gigantic cathedral which the commies tore down and made into a swimming complex:
Aside from all of that, Putin and the people around him have clearly taken a hard look at the ongoing suicide of the West and determind that Russia is not going to participate in any of that happy horse-****. Not allowing gays to recruit or prosylitize in schools or allowing girl bands to desecrate a church are signs of a recovered righteousness.
I mean, if I've missed anything or left anything important out here or gotten anything wrong, somebody let me know, but this is the picture I'm seeing. I don't see anything not to like with Putin or the vision of the current Russian government.
Killed in action: 6,115,000
Wounded : 14,012,000
USA military casualties in WWII:
Killed in action: 291,557
Wounded : 670,846
“And the Russians would also be bankrupt as their economy would be devastated without the sale of oil and gas to Europe. They don’t have the infrastructure in the short term to sell the same volume to China or Japan.”
Your post was irrelevant to this factual statement.
Yeah.....and we lost over 625K during the civil war with only a population of 31 million.....
Statistics......so what is your point...Russians are worse in combat, or better at it....
Or is it that a lot of Russians died for their country when the objective of war is to make the guy on the other side die for his.
(Russia has bailed our hiney’s out of some really awful kind of ****?)
“Yes. WWII would have been a lot harder to win without the Russians.”
LMAO. So, the Russians made a pact with Hitler to conquer and divide up Poland...but the Russians saved our Hiney’s?
The historical illiteracy is amazing. The Russians were only on our side out of dumbstruck luck and they were willing partners with Hitler.
No, not directly.
When Hitler attacked the USSR it turned into one of those "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" things.
Having the Russians, along with their "global cooling", killing a lot of Germans was a help.
We probably would have won without them, but it would have taken a lot longer.
Your “factual statement” is fictional.
The FACT is that Europe NOW needs the Russian oil and gas, which amounts to 50% of its energy, and won’t commit an economical hara-kiri, just to please the US.
If America can replace à pied levé Russia’s exports in Europe, go for it!
The numbers are the numbers, but many US merchant mariners died in the North Atlantic, getting aircraft and tanks to the Russians.
However, my point is that the Soviets/Russians can hardly take credit for their great sacrifice, when their initial support for Hitler and actually dividing up the war spoils by treaty, mitigate their contribution.
But the reality is that Russia has used the supply pipelines of natural gas...(methane to the science crowd) as a political tool in Eastern Europe, so why not do it elsewhere?
I think it's hilarious that Germany was only recently somewhat independent regarding power production with nuclear plants and now are jettisoning the nukes in favor of Nat gas...being so green....Now the Lady has dug herself a deeper hole. She has to depend on Russia which explains her political stance today. So tell me, why are they worried? Should they not be worried? After all, it's just business right...? What's a little bit of political kowtowing between good friends..
“The FACT is that Europe NOW needs the Russian oil and gas, which amounts to 50% of its energy, and won’t commit an economical hara-kiri, just to please the US.”
Yes, it is true that the Russians are the great dispenser of oil and gas to Europe. That is fundamental.
But the previous poster addressed a critical point which you have avoided with a strawman argument.
The Russian threat to cut off this oil to Europe is a threat with a knife to the throat of the Russian economy. In effect, it is no threat at all. Russia is a failed state and economy without its oil/gas exports.
The problem with that though, is that a aggressor State will convince it's self that they can do a quicky....minimize the downtime with a quick and decisive victory.
Hitler tried it with Russia....and if anyone could tell me what Putin would do with a refreshed military and half a reason, I might take the odds and the over/under..
Russia has a national debt of 8% of GDP
and $700 billion tresury reserve, so in short run, they can do whatever they please.
They can very well turn off the gas taps for a couple of weeks, until Europs cries “Uncle”. It’s already happened in 2006 and 2009.
Russia is a couple of paychecks away from domestic anarchy.
I hope they do. But they won’t.
A very nice take on the situation. As an aside the Ukrainian language is more closely related to the Czech language.
You are correct that Putin wants all of Ukraine. Agriculture iron ore coal and a very strong industrial base come with it
Bravo Jeremiah! They also damaged the interior of at least one church.
As I noted, the Ukrainian poeple don’t really have anywhere else to go, PARTICULARLY when the only other option involves dealing with George Soros, the Rothschilds, and the IMF.
Probably the president will not use his Executive Order to seize the assets of Americans who disagree with his Ukraine policy. But he says he can.
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2014/march/14/against-ukraine-war-obama-may-seize-your-assets.aspx
OK; well, I’ll hazard a guess it’ll come out about like it did for the Greeks.
One question none of you have addressed: GIVEN that the clowns who seized control of Kiev were also responsible for a false-flag op which involved snipers killing not only Ukrainian cops but dozens of ordinary Ukrainians including protesters, i.e. that they were willing to kill many of their own people in order to achieve some political end... Why is our government (and for that matter, why are YOU) supporting a bunch of barbarians of such a sort??
I mean, this is several steps beyond ordinary garden-variety villainy here, this is seriously messed up.
Worse, why has our state department apparently made a habit of supporting people who engage in such activities? The thing about sarin gas in Syria was entirely similar. Bork Obunga wanted to go to war with Syria on the spot and was stopped by congress and the American people. Apparently he was told he'd be immediately impeached and removed if he tried it.
But post-Communist Russians don’t shoot down people in cold blood.
Its a lot better than the situation in East Germany, Poland and Hungary would have been.
If Russia was still ruled by the Communists, the situation in Ukraine would have been a bloodbath.
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